Abstract
Throughout the colonial era photographers such as Marcelin Flandrin, an Algerian pied-noir who settled in Morocco at the establishment of the protectorate, collaborated with the government and tourism boards to construct a European vision of North African society and history. Known as the photographer of Casablanca because of his heavy involvement with the Protectorate government, in the era immediately following independence Flandrin’s work was criticized for reproducing Orientalist stereotypes and supporting the colonizing mission. Since the 1980s, however, Flandrin’s images have been appropriated as a critical part of Moroccan identity in order to resituate the protectorate as a part of Moroccan, rather than solely French, history.
This paper argues that the appropriation of colonial visual culture was central to the establishment of postcolonial national identity in Morocco. In it, I examine Flandrin’s transformation from an archetypal French colonial photographer to a part of Moroccan heritage through an analysis of key events in Flandrin’s colonial career, and the subsequent appropriation of Flandrin by Moroccan scholars and cultural institutions. In 1928 and 1956, Flandrin published collections of his work that presented the French colonial project as necessary and beneficial to the nation. Though 1956 marked the year of Moroccan independence, Flandrin’s work presented French colonialism as unwavering and looked forward to a colonial future.
In 1988, the Groupe de Recherches et d’Etudes sur Casablanca (G.R.E.C.) at the Hassan II University in Casablanca republished these works and reframed them through the incorporation of two new prefaces. With these new prefaces, the G.R.E.C. directed the book towards a new, Moroccan audience. Whereas Flandrin’s work was originally created in order to convey the progress and modernization that justified colonialism, the reprint allows the formerly conquered Moroccans to expand their knowledge of Casablanca as well as disprove the predictions and ideals of Flandrin and the French colonial project that he represented. The appropriation of Flandrin continued in 1994 when the Fondation Banque Populaire pour l'Education et la Culture purchased the Flandrin archive as part of their ongoing effort to maintain essential parts of Moroccan heritage within the country. The effort of the G.R.E.C. and the Fondation Banque populaire to integrate Flandrin into Moroccan heritage and history symbolizes the attempt to reinterpret this era of history through a Moroccan lens. This paper examines the ways in which these images cross political and temporal boundaries as Moroccans insert new meanings onto these historical photographs.
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